Peter Doyle

In 1991, according to Stephen Downes, Trianon was worth 17 out of 20; equal fourth in his list of the top ten.

"Haute cuisine, haute ambience ... Peter Doyle's cooking gets better and better ... These days it is achieving something miraculous in straddling the border between the finest of haute cuisine and modern Sydney bistro eating. Some clients might find it an uncomfortable position to take, but there is no doubt that it is brave marketing indeed to try to sell an essentially modern menu in a restaurant that has old-fashioned opulence and style."

The restaurant got two hats and 17 out of 20 in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide.

"There are those that would argue that Peter Doyle went from sandshoes to dancing pumps a little too quickly and that success predated the coalescing of his culinary skills. Inevitably a price was paid ... today Doyle's neo-classic French fare must be described as some of the finest fare in this town"

Certainly amongst his peers, Peter Doyle is a popular boy. He seems universally liked and to almost the same extent -- respected. However some say his food was better at Reflections.

Certainly our memory of Reflections in the mid 1980s was that his food was amongst Sydney's best -- possibly second only to Damien Pignolet (and Josephine at that stage). But the place at Palm Beach was so clean and simple that we must have been influenced by that. The atmosphere at Le Trianon was not good.

Peter started cooking in 1972 at the Argyle Tavern where he worked 18 months whilst attending Tech; the Macquarie Inn for a further 18 months and the Newport Arms for twelve months.

"It was pretty basic stuff then; filet mignon was about the most classy dish you could have.

"After finishing my apprenticeship I went overseas for eight to ten months. When I came back I worked at Le Cafe with Patrick Juillet for twelve months when it first opened. It was very trendy and quite different for its time. Patrick had no technique, he was not trained -- but he could put together a few things and it was fresh and distinctive. But things were very different then; you could get away with at lot more, you could throw things together in a way which you can't -- not like the old days. It was much more hit and miss then.

"After Le Cafe I went overseas with my wife for twelve months and worked in England, drove around France and Italy and managed to work a week at Trois Gros, Vergé and Georges Blanc. Vergé was probably the most exciting at that stage -- he was still at the stoves then and was doing some lovely things -- not like now. His food has changed since then. He was then cooking really well.

"I came back to Sydney and worked with Paul Elser, a Swiss chef at Chanterelle. He was fully trained classically and an excellent chef. He was cooking classically but at that stage with a nouvelle influence and it was very good. Unfortunately the restaurant didn't last very long due to the break-up of his marriage. I worked there six months.

"Then we started our own business, Turrits, in the Castlereigh Hotel; it was just Beverley, my wife, and I -- we did lunches only for about 20 months. Then when we had enough capital we started Reflections which ran for five years.

"We felt the time had come to make the move; there was a limit to what we could do at Reflections and the winters were so long. In summer, it was seven days a week -- very hard -- then the winters were very quiet but you still had to open for the weekends, we couldn't really afford to close and it was very hard going through those on/off periods.

"We came to Trianon at the wrong time, we've been here three and a half years and only the first year was reasonable until July when it started to slow; then we had the pilots strike and then the economy started to go bad and has got worse and worse. It was bad timing -- the whole economy has changed and the style of eating has changed. Its value for money times but very few people can equate value with a price of $60.

"This style of dining was more of an in thing; once upon a time they didn't worry about price -- it was part of the social scene".

Is it just the price or is also the style of the restaurant?

"Both, it's felt that you can't be seen to be spending money and if you come to a flash place it must be costing money -- even though you can go to a bistro and pay extra for your salad, your chips, your vegetables, even your bread -- and you'll finish up paying the same".

"I consider myself basically self taught even though I went to Tech, etc. -- the chefs I was apprenticed to really didn't teach me anything I use now, I learnt for myself in travelling, watching, reading and trying out for myself. In Australia that's pretty much the way it is for chefs of my era.

"Maybe its better not to have a rigid training -- maybe that leads to being less focussed and more prepared to try things".

Peter Doyle and his wife, Barbara, closed Trianon, redecorated and revamped the Challis Street site and reopened it as Cicada. It is bright, breezy bistro style priced at the top end of that market and it's been one long buzzing summer ever since, constantly booked out and given two chefs hats in the 1995 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide.

In 2000 Trianon was sold and Peter moved to Celsius at the Radisson Hotel, 27 O'Connell St, Sydney.

A 1999 interview (and recipes) with chef/owner Peter Doyle